


Lovesick

by quietx



Series: Haikyuu Angst Week 2020 [4]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Angst, Anxiety, Fluff and Angst, Getting Together, Haikyuu Angst Week 2020, Hospitals, Illnesses, Implied Sexual Content, M/M, Panic Attacks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-03
Updated: 2020-11-03
Packaged: 2021-03-08 20:13:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,426
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27372478
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quietx/pseuds/quietx
Summary: “I know you like me, Omi,” he says completely straight. There’s no teasing tone in his voice at all. He’s completely sincere and Sakusa knows that he’s been caught.He closes his eyes and takes a few breaths, before confronting Atsumu’s direct eye contact.“Yes. I do,”[Haikyuu Angst Week Day 4: Illness]
Relationships: Miya Atsumu/Sakusa Kiyoomi
Series: Haikyuu Angst Week 2020 [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1993993
Comments: 1
Kudos: 123





	Lovesick

**Author's Note:**

> please mind the tags!! there's a lot of discussions of anxiety disorders and a brief scene mentioning a panic attack. 
> 
> with that in mind, please enjoy this half character study/half angst week fic

When Sakusa was six years old, he spent six months in and out of the hospital.

First, it was the flu. A particularly bad strain had kept him feverish for days, struggling to breathe and full of aches and pains. He’d spent two weeks in the hospital. 

Barely a month later, he shattered his ankle. It required two separate surgeries to put everything back together. A week into his recovery, the wound developed an infection, and he spent yet another week in the hospital. 

The final, and worst blow of all, was his mother’s strep, which put her in and out of the hospital alongside him for months, ending in a surgery that left her coughing up blood and requiring emergency surgery in the middle of the night.

He remembers, with painfully vivid clarity, crying on the floor of the hospital waiting room with a nurse sitting in the chair in front of him. 

“Why is this happening?” he remembers asking, throat and eyes sore from crying for hours on end, voice barely above a whisper. 

The nurse, a woman he distinctly remembers being named Naoko, responded gently. She was so young, he realizes now, probably brand new to the medical world, assigned to taking care of a six year old in the lobby who was crying over his mother’s surgery. 

“Kiyoomi-kun,” she said gently, “in the world, there are these tiny little bugs called germs that can hurt people, but it’s okay. Everyone in the world can fight them, and I know that your mom is strong enough to fight them off too.” 

As an adult, one who’s had to do and say more hard things than he ever thought possible back when he was six, he realizes that Naoko was trying to comfort him. She was trying to make his mother seem like a superhero who was fighting a tough battle and winning. On a cerebral level, it makes a lot of sense: frame the sickness as a villain, and frame his mother as a hero. 

However, at ten years old after three years of therapy and two different anxiety medications for debilitating germaphobia that made him feel like any sort of uncleanliness would put his mother and him back in the hospital, it really didn’t seem that way. 

He resented Naoko for a very long time, and if he’s being honest, he still does. On a lesser level, of course, thanks to coping mechanisms and plenty of nice, long chats with his therapist over the years, but resents her nonetheless. 

Sakusa fully believes he’s made a lot of progress with his anxieties. He’s no longer on medication 24/7, and he only holds onto a few of his compulsive behaviors. Sure, he always has hand sanitizer on him, frequently cleans his personal areas, and still squirms in locker rooms or when people touch him too often after games when they’re covered in sweat, but for the time being, it doesn’t control his life. It’s been a long time since he’s declined going out due to his anxieties, and in his book, that’s definitely a victory.

However, starting a relationship was an entirely different story.

Atsumu Miya is a very _touchy_ person. He’s never afraid to hand out hugs or high fives or to slap a teammate on the ass after a game. He hands away smiles and shouts of joy, letting the whole world observe his emotions. Atsumu Miya is someone who welcomes the world, nasty consequences and negative feedback be damned. 

When Sakusa first started watching him closely, he’d been so incredibly critical of this approach. It could _only_ lead to trouble, letting everything in like that. He’d scoffed at him many, many times when he told Sakusa he was _way too uptight,_ and _needed to take a chill pill._ Sakusa flipped him off and told him he already had. 

Atsumu had apologized the next day, and Sakusa hated the way it made him feel warm inside.

As his feelings shifted, his judgement of Atsumu’s openness slowly morphed into worrying about him. He watched and cringed as Atsumu shook hands, touched handrails, delayed getting his flu shot, forgot his mask, and walked into public bathrooms without any hesitation. 

_Don’t you know?_ he wanted to scream, _Don’t you know how dangerous that is? Protect yourself you complete dumbass!_

He’d been managing so well for so long, only to have all of these sweeping anxieties come back at him in full force. And for what! A stupid crush? Completely fucking ridiculous. 

It doesn’t take long after these realizations for Atsumu to actually ask him out. 

“You know, Omiomi,” he leads with, “you sure do glare at me an awful lot.” They’re outside after a loss in the semi-finals, cooling down after a long day of volleyball and press. Sakusa has his back to the wall of the stadium, not leaning against it, but centimeters away with his hands in his pockets. Atsumu is beside him, shoulders pressing into the cinder block as he looks up at the quickly darkening sky.

Sakusa sighs. “We’re teammates, and you’re annoying. I think glaring is inevitable.”

“I knew you would say that,” he laughs, boisterously. He steps in front of Sakusa, leaning in close so that their faces are close even despite the slight height difference. He grins and raises an eyebrow at him. “But I also know that you’re not stupid enough to not know what I’m implying.”

Sakusa pulls his face into an irritated deadpan, making sure Atsumu can see exactly how displeased he is with this new position they’re in.

Atsumu leans back, now, rolling back onto his heels and shoving his hands into his pockets. It looks like a nervous gesture he probably picked up from Hinata, but Sakusa isn’t 100% sure.

“I know you like me, Omi,” he says completely straight. There’s no teasing tone in his voice at all. He’s completely sincere and Sakusa knows that he’s been caught. 

He closes his eyes and takes a few breaths, before confronting Atsumu’s direct eye contact.

“Yes. I do,” he answers, refusing to divulge any more information than that at this moment. He can’t agree or propose anything to Atsumu himself, because he isn’t completely sure what he wants right now. If Atsumu suggests something, and he doesn’t want that, he’ll gladly turn it down. If he _does_ want it though...

“So go on a date with me.”

Right. Of course. He should’ve expected that. 

His heart pounds a bit faster as the idea settles in. He _does_ want that, but the idea of going on a date in public with Atsumu is enough to tie his stomach into tight knots of stress. 

Sakusa lets his eyes flit around a bit, down to the ground, the side, then back up to Atsumu, who is patiently waiting for a response of any sort from Sakusa.

“I want to say yes.” This feels like a safe answer. One that allows him to put up boundaries if he needs to, but one that shouldn’t discourage Atsumu much.

“But?”

“But I need our first date to be at my apartment,” is what he ultimately responds with. It feels like a lot to ask, and he honestly hates it a little bit. It almost feels regressive, like he’s backtracking on his coping mechanisms. Rationally, he knows that any one of the many medical professionals he talked to over the years would say that it’s okay to be in safe spaces, and they would congratulate him on even _agreeing_ to letting another person get close to him physically.

Atsumu raises an eyebrow. “That’s forward, isn’t it?” He grins like the cat who caught the canary. “I didn’t realize you liked me that much, Omi-kun.”

He bites the inside of his cheek and rolls his eyes. Why does he like this asshole, again?

“I don’t mean it like that.” He figures he might as well ask for what he actually wants before ending this conversation: “And please shower before you show up. I don’t want you spreading germs all around my apartment.”

Atsumu’s mouth rounds into a small _o_ as he realizes what this is actually about. He nods slowly, as if to agree. 

“Alright. I can work with that. _But,”_ he pauses for dramatic effect, “I think I’ve earned a kiss.” 

His smile is so charming in that moment, but Sakusa cannot imagine wanting to do anything _less_ than swapping spit with Atsumu Miya after hours in a dirty, crowded stadium, much less when he knows he hasn’t brushed his teeth or worn a mask at all. 

He still looks hopeful, though. 

“I can’t.”

And that’s that. 

Atsumu puts his hands up, knowing he’s crossed some sort of boundary. He steps back, and allows Sakusa to walk past him towards the train station. 

Eventually, Atsumu gets his kiss. More than a few, actually. It takes some time and some build up. They start with kisses to the skin, hands, neck, cheek. Then to the mouth, and then further. 

Months pass as they work on it, and he _knows_ that Atsumu is impatient sometimes, and he knows that anyone else in the world would’ve willingly made out with Atsumu on the first date. But Atsumu didn’t choose anyone, so he gets what he gets. 

Kissing is nice, though. Comfortable, even. So nice that sometimes, just _sometimes,_ he can forget about his own worries. 

“Y’alright?” was a question that Sakusa was now intimately familiar with. It would come constantly during their more intimate moments. Whispered into his hair or his thigh or against his lips, and more often than not, his own response was _yes, you fucking idiot of course it’s alright._

As if Atsumu would ever push so far it wouldn’t be alright.

It had been such a slow progression. A build to their formerly aggressive relationship that he can safely say neither of them really expected. On the court, back in high school, and even now, they’re both such aggressive people. If they were asked, _gentle,_ and _patient_ were certainly not words they’d use to describe themselves. 

And, yet, here they are, both laying on Atsumu’s couch, Sakusa’s legs across Atsumu’s lap while they watch Pixar movies. 

It’s only at this moment that Sakusa realizes something is wrong. 

He’d initially dismissed it as hiccups. Atsumu always drinks things too fast, forgetting to drink water or any fluids for hours until he needs something immediately. Hiccups would make sense. 

Except after half an hour, Sakusa realizes that he’s stifling _coughs._

He immediately pulls his legs back, sitting up and moving as far away from Atsumu as he possibly can while still remaining on the same couch.

“Why are you coughing?” he demands with immediacy. 

“Just a tickle in my throat.” He waves a hand dismissively but Sakusa stops watching the movie. 

Fifteen minutes, and 9 coughs later, Sakusa stands up and starts heading to the door. 

Atsumu jumps up after him. “Hey, hey, wait! I thought everything was fine!”

“It _was_ fine.” Sakusa slips on his mask before putting on his shoes. “I’m not getting sick because of you.”

“I’m not sick! It’s just my throat.” 

Sakusa physically jerks at that, memories of long nights at the hospital flooding back to slap him in the face. Of course it’s his throat. As if the universe could let Sakusa have _one good thing_ in his life. 

“Message me when you’re feeling better,” is what he says in lieu of a goodbye. 

As he’s walking home, he receives three messages from Atsumu. The first is an apology, the second is a block of emojis, and the third is a promise.

AM: _i’ll get better soon, i swear. and the whole apartment will be spotless for us to do whatever ;))_

Sakusa has to bite his cheek to prevent himself from smiling.

He fully anticipates a message a day or two later, letting him know that Atsumu is all better and that he called over his brother to help him bleach the entire apartment or something of that sort. 

Three days later, Atsumu lets him know that he has a fever.

Seven days, and Atsumu has missed practice twice, now. 

Ten, and Sakusa receives a call. 

“Hey, Omi-san,” is the greeting from Osamu. He picked up that obnoxious nickname from Atsumu, but at least he knows they’re not close. “I know you’re not a fan of germs, but we’re headed to the hospital. We think he’s got a bad case of pneumonia.”

Sakusa’s stomach drops out.

Emergency rooms are _covered_ in germs and infections. He can’t go visit Atsumu while he’s there. There’s no way that he’ll be able to sit in another hospital waiting room while he waits for an operation to finish on someone that he cares for. 

He should’ve been more careful. He should’ve been more adamant. None of this would’ve happened if he’d just made sure that Atsumu was safe. If he’d insisted that he washed his hands more regularly or that he was more cautious in public spaces. 

He can feel his heart racing, clamminess building on his skin, head swirling with the worst case scenarios as he lets it all sink in. 

He’s sitting on the floor of his kitchen, hands shaking when he fully comes back into himself. At some point, he must’ve hung up the phone, and it’s only been a few minutes. It’s been a _long_ time since he had a full-blown panic attack. 

Stupid, stupid, stupid Atsumu. Sakusa had worked for _years_ on this, only for all of his protections to come crumbling down because of a boyfriend. 

If he’d never said yes to that first date, if he’d never let his feelings shift into affection, if he’d never let Atsumu get close to him, he wouldn’t be feeling like this. He would be coping just fine, not on the verge of tears as he thinks about going to the hospital to visit his stupid fucking boyfriend who he should’ve taken better care of. 

_I wish none of this had happened._

He doesn’t eat for the rest of the day, occasionally getting updates from Osamu via text. Learning that Atsumu has fluid in his lungs, and they’re doing an operation later today is enough to make him have to lay down. 

He takes a sleeping pill a bit later, knowing that there’s no way he’ll get any rest if he doesn’t, when he receives his final text of the evening.

AM: _i’ll recover quickly, omiomi. make sure you get some sleep_

Fuck, he loves him. 

**Author's Note:**

> come check out more sakuatsu from me on twt @caatomiomi


End file.
